Reporters Without Borders: UK Government targeting of encryption after terror attacks is threat to journalism

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Free speech campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is concerned that Government threats to crack down on encryption technology could make it harder for investigative journalists to keep their sources safe.

Prime Minister Theresa May spoke out about the need to “regulate cyberspace” after the 3 June London Bridge terror attack.

RSF London bureau chief Rebecca Vincent told Press Gazette: “Theresa May’s recent comments about the internet are worrying, especially following Amber Rudd’s previous remarks that tools that use end-to-end encryption such as Whatsapp are ‘completely unacceptable'”.

“RSF is concerned that restrictions on the use of encryption tools might be on the horizon, which is even more damaging in the light of the vast surveillance powers the government has gained through the Investigatory Powers Act. It is part of a worrying broader trend of moves to restrict press freedom in the UK”.

Vincent has previously warned the IPA could serve as a “death sentence for investigative journalism in the UK” because it lacks “sufficient mechanisms to protect whistleblowers, journalists, and their sources”.

She told Press Gazette: “This Government is making it harder and harder for journalists to do their jobs, in particular investigative journalists who need to use secure forms of communication. As with the IPA, such measures undermine the ability of journalists to protect their sources and carry out effective investigations into sensitive topics that are in the public interest”.

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RSF has said it welcomes the Conservative party’s manifesto pledge to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 and not to proceed with part two of the Leveson Inquiry. But, Vincent said, RSF will be monitoring the situation closely to ensure that these pledges are fulfilled.

She also welcomed the fact that repealing the Human Rights Act won’t be revisited until after Brexit – but reiterated that this is a move which RSF opposes altogether. The HRA currently provides protection for journalists and others by setting out the right to freedom of expression.

Vincent said: “It doesn’t appear to be something they are moving forward with imminently. But we are really alarmed by the idea that such a law could see journalists and bloggers labelled as spies and possibly jailed for up to 14 years for receiving leaked information”.

A decision is expected at the end of the year on whether the Government will proceed with the proposed shake-up of Official Secrets legislation.

Vincent said: “We would very much like to see this proposal scrapped. If such legislation had been in place when the Guardian’s 2013 Snowden revelations came out, the journalists involved in those stories could have been sent to jail.

“It would have an immediate chilling effect and restrict the ability of journalists to do their jobs in the UK”.

Vincent also said that some of the recent public comments by UK government ministers are a “cause for concern”, not least because “other countries around the world look to the UK to set an example on press freedom and other human rights issues”.

She cited the statement from Leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom that journalists should be more “patriotic” when it comes to covering Brexit and foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s recent suggestion that “people have had enough about this freedom of speech stuff”.

1 thought on “Reporters Without Borders: UK Government targeting of encryption after terror attacks is threat to journalism”

Dark forces are being sanctioned to illegally implant folk with perineum injections for tracking and remote access , the dark world of corporate criminal enterprises sanctioned by and on this Government T.I’s Pro-gramme. Developed PATSY’S MK controlled. Tyrants have been voted in as servants to the Crown for the people. This has been abused so much so that democracy and Brexit are a farce and will never happen their plans are transparent to some yet not to others.